November 28Th
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Io – November2014 p.1 IO - November 2014 Issue 2014-11 PO Box 7264 Eugene Astronomical Society Annual Club Dues $25 Springfield, OR 97475 President: Sam Pitts - 688-7330 www.eugeneastro.org Secretary: Jerry Oltion - 343-4758 Additional Board members: EAS is a proud member of: Jacob Strandlien, Tony Dandurand, John Loper. Next Meeting Thursday, November 20th What I Want For Christmas by Jerry Oltion, Mel Bartels, Jon Schwartz, and YOU Our November 20th meeting will be an opportunity to talk about equipment in an informal setting. Jerry, Mel, and Jon will lead the discussion, but everyone is encouraged to join in as we talk about what’s available for amateur astronomers today, what’s essential and what’s just a nice luxury. Have a favorite something you can’t do without? Bring it and tell us why you like it so much. If you’re thinking of buying new gear for Christmas, ei- ther for yourself or for someone else, now’s your chance to talk to people who might already have and use it. Learn whether it’s as good as advertised and find out if it’s what you really want. The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, November 20th at the Science Factory planetarium. Come early to visit before the program starts. Next First Quarter Friday: November 28th Our October 31st First Quarter Friday wasn’t exactly mobbed with costumed kids seeking the treat of photons older then they were, but on the other hand we did have mostly clear sky for a couple of hours and a dozen or so people to show the sights to. We had six scopes among five club members (Bill B. brought two), so we had plenty of optics to go around. Jerry brought a jack-o-lantern and candy, so we had treats of the more traditional variety as well. First Quarter Fridays are laid-back opportunities to do some observing and promote astronomy at the same time. Mark your calendar and bring your scope to the College Hill Reservoir (24th and Lawrence in Eugene) and share the view with whoever shows up. Here’s the schedule through 2015. November 28 (46% lit) December 26 (31% lit) January 23 (17% lit) February 27 (74% lit) March 27 (58% lit) April 24 (42% lit) May 22 (26% lit) June 26 (75% lit) July 24 (60% lit) August 21 (43% lit) September 18 (28% lit) October 23 (84% lit) November 20 (70% lit) December 18 (55% lit) Io – November 2014 p.2 October 16th Meeting Report Our October 16th meeting was a busy one. We distributed calendars and eclipse glasses before the meeting started, talked about the logistics of our upcoming eclipse party, welcomed Dave Kasnick of the NightSky45 club in Salem, who came down to meet us and propose an exchange of speakers for our meetings in the upcoming year, and we held elections for board positions. Jerry Oltion was re-elected and Diane Martin and Mel Bartels were elected to new terms. Diane was not able to attend the meeting, but she had previously volunteered to serve as club president and was hap- pily welcomed in that role by the membership. Jerry will continue to serve as club secretary. We then presented Jon Schwartz with a certificate and pin from the Astronomical League for completing their binocular Messier program. Jon told us how much he enjoyed making the observa- tions for the program and he urged everyone to try one of the many Astronomical League observing programs. They provide structure and motivation for observing sessions and give a person a great opportunity to learn new objects in the night sky. There are dozens of different programs for all skill levels. Congratulations, Jon, for earning your first of many! Mel Bartels then gave a talk on Chinese constellations and star lore. It was a fascinating look at a very different system of organizing the stars. The Chinese sky is arranged into five palaces, four for the cardinal directions and one at the center for the em- peror. Each of the four outer palaces is divided into seven mansions or lunar lodges. The mansions are arranged in a rough circle, but that circle isn’t centered on Polaris as you might expect. Rather, Jon Schwartz receives his Binocular Messier they’re centered on the place where precession of the Earth’s axis pin and certificate would have put the celestial pole about 15,000 years ago. Is it possible that this system for organizing the night sky could be that old? No one knows for sure, but the evidence is compelling. Mel concentrated on the constellation of the white tiger, which is associated with the West and with the season of Autumn. It covers present-day An- dromeda, Pisces, Aries, Taurus and Orion. Mel taught us how to identify the seven mansions within the ti- ger, and what each mansion signifies. The 28 man- sions correspond to the 28 days of a lunar orbit, so it wasn’t surprising to learn that the Moon also plays a significant role in Chinese star lore. The legend of Chang’e, the goddess of the Moon, and Yutu, her Jade Rabbit companion, are so deep a part of Chi- nese culture that they named their lunar orbiter and lander mission Chang’e and Yutu. Mel’s talk gave us an intriguing glimpse into a The four outer palaces and the twenty-eight mansions of the system of stellar folklore that’s as old as civilization Chinese constellation system itself. Thank you, Mel! Io – November2014 p.3 October 8th Lunar Eclipse We had good weather for the total lunar eclipse in the early morning of October 8th. Several EAS members and a dozen or so people from the general public met at the College Hill Reservoir to watch it, and many others watched it from home or from other sites around the area. The Moon went through the top portion of Earth’s shadow, so it was much darker on the bottom than on the top, but it still turned a nice coppery red during totality. The sky darkened and the Pleiades came out straight overhead, as well as Taurus and Orion high in the east. The solar system provided an added bonus: Uranus was visible just one lunar diameter to the south of the Moon. That’s it to the lower left in Jeff Phillips’s photo. The partially eclipsed Moon looks like a crescent moon at first glance, until you realize that the arc of the crescent is all wrong. Not only is the angle wrong, but so are the start and end points and the amount of curvature. The effect was most pronounced near to- tality when the lit crescent looked nothing like a regu- lar crescent Moon. Several observers also noted how much bigger the lit portion seemed. To the naked eye it looked like a badly assembled Photoshop job, with the bright part sticking out well past the dim part. It had to be Copyright © 2014 by Jerry Oltion Copyright © 2014 by Jerry Oltion the effect of lens flare or retinal spillover in our eyes, but it looked very real and decidedly strange. Clouds drifted in during totality, so the Moon’s reemergence was lost, but at 4:30 in the morning most of us were willing to call it a night and go home anyway. Bill Basham made a beautiful time lapse video of it from out near Brothers. Here’s the URL to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIjfgxDB9Pc Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Phillips Io – November 2014 p.4 October 23rd Solar Eclipse The weather elementals weren’t as generous on the 23rd as they were on the 8th. The day of the partial solar eclipse dawned wet and gray, and stayed that way all day long. Some of us set up at the Science Factory and at the College Hill Reservoir anyway, just in case, and we were rewarded with about 10 seconds of thinner clouds that let us just make out a dim image of the Sun with a bite taken out of it. Others were more fotunate. Mel Bartels and Barb Bajec had a little better view at their home south of Cottage Grove, and Bill Basham drove out to a site near Sisters and managed to get a decent sequence of photos showing the eclipse as it progressed. Note the monster sunspot group visible near the center. That was big enough to see by naked eye on previous days. Photos copyright © 2014 by Bill Basham Thank You Castle Storage For the last several years, Castle Storage has generously pro- vided EAS a place to store its telescopes and equipment. EAS would like to thank Castle Storage for their generosity and support for our group. Please give them a call if you need a storage space, and tell your friends. They are great people and offer secure and quality storage units. Io – November2014 p.5 Music of the Spheres A Cosmic Concert with visuals of deep space performed by members of the Eugene Chapter of the American Guild of Organists Friday, November 21 First United Methodist Church 1376 Olive Street, Eugene, Oregon 7:00 PM Prof. Bernie Bopp, narrator Part of the 2014-2015 Concerts at First in collaboration with Eugene Chapter AGO and the Eugene Astronomical Society Suggested donation $10 Bring canned goods for Food for Lane County Discounted Magazine Subscriptions One of the benefits of EAS membership is a club discount on subscriptions to Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines. The clubmember rate for Sky & Telescope Magazine is $32.95 for one year or $65.90 for two years.